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The Ethical Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas: a Phenomenological Approach To Bridgewater State University Virtual Commons - Bridgewater State University Master’s Theses and Projects College of Graduate Studies 12-2013 The thicE al Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas: A Phenomenological Approach to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road Ashley Elisabeth Murphy Follow this and additional works at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/theses Part of the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Murphy, Ashley Elisabeth. (2013). The thicalE Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas: A Phenomenological Approach to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. In BSU Master’s Theses and Projects. Item 1. Available at http://vc.bridgew.edu/theses/1 Copyright © 2013 Ashley Elisabeth Murphy This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. The Ethical Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas: A Phenomenological Approach to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road By Ashley Elisabeth Murphy Approved as to style and content by _____________________________ (Chairperson of Thesis Committee) _____________________________ (Member) _____________________________ (Member) December 2013 The Ethical Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas: A Phenomenological Approach to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road A Thesis Presented By Ashley Elisabeth Murphy Submitted to The Graduate School of Bridgewater State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts December 2013 Concentration: English Table of Contents Chapter 1: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas…………1 Chapter 2: Proximity, Justice, and Memory: Elements to Rebuild an Ethical Society………..12 Chapter 3: Violence in The Road: The Face, Killing, and Freedom...........................................23 Chapter 4: Investigating God and the Other in McCarthy’s The Road.......................................33 Chapter 5: Engaging the Other: Exploring Language in The Road............................................44 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………55 Chapter 1 Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas American media and pop culture have experienced an influx of imagined apocalyptic scenarios since WWII when the social consciousness became aware of mankind’s ability to wreak global destruction, thus triggering societal questioning of morality and violence. In particular, the post-apocalyptic world of literature and cinema harbors a strong sense of confusion regarding morality challenged by the necessity to survive. The post-apocalyptic fiction of modern times questions the structural foundation of society as we know it, begging the postmodern enquiry regarding the survival of humanity without a universal morality bound by law and cultural adherence. Cormac McCarthy’s novel, taking place in a barren, lawless world, investigates possible answers to the postmodern question of what would happen if the world as we know it were to succumb to an unthinkable destruction, where chaos prevails and there is no ethical foundation to dictate social behavior. Critical exploration of morality in post-apocalyptic fiction is nothing new and is what most critics have done with McCarthy’s The Road; however, in exploring the context of The Road through the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, a French philosopher who survived the Holocaust, one is able to explore morality in the face of violence and investigate the depth of human evil from the angle of his ethical philosophy. Applying Levinas’s philosophy to the apocalyptic scenario helps to surface the personal internal struggle in comprehending whether or not a universal morality exists, or if it does exist, if it is diminishing. The phenomenological approach of Levinas to these concerns deepens the understanding of the human fascination with the apocalypse because the phenomenological approach shifts the more accustomed viewpoint and evaluation of reality by: “a suspension or bracketing of the everyday natural attitude and all ‘world-positing’ intentional acts which assumed the existence of the world, until the practitioner is led back into the domain of pure transcendental subjectivity” (Moran 2). This, in a way, is a form of defamiliarization, which allows one to reassess personal traditions, values, 1 and, of course, morality in one’s existence in a shared reality, which is a reality including the existence of others. Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy explores ethics in relation to the Other as understood as God—an ultimate being, or any unifying element of existence beyond worldly comprehension—and the Other as another human being—a neighbor, a friend, a stranger on the street, or the clerk standing behind the counter at the local coffee shop. Thus the concept of the Other, according to Levinas, is a concept inseparable from the responsibility and ethical behavior toward the Other. My thesis investigates McCarthy’s treatment of ethical behavior under extreme circumstances as understood in terms of Levinas’s philosophy as a philosophy that explores ethics under extreme circumstances and the ultimate challenges to moral behavior. Levinas’s exploration of phenomenology started between 1928 and 1929, when he studied under Husserl and Heidegger in Germany and, thus, developed his ethical philosophy based on the relationship with the Other. Levinas eventually strayed away from Husserl when Husserl became involved with the Nazis. After WWII, Levinas wrote on Jewish spirituality, his influence being that most of his family had been murdered during the Holocaust. These early writings helped to further develop his ontological writings he would eventually be widely known and admired for. His status as one of the leading philosophers in France was confirmed with the publication of his work Totality and Infinity in 1961, in which “he gave phenomenology a radically ethical orientation, an orientation it has lacked since the death of Scheler” (Moran 320). Levinas sought to elaborate the ethical nature of the relation with the Other; which is the focal point of this investigation in terms of The Road. Levinas has thus led to a growing interest in ethical issues among postmodernist critics and deserves an expansive exploration in relation to contemporary post-apocalyptic literature, particularly The Road. This investigation of McCarthy’s The Road in the context of Levinas’s philosophy focuses on four areas, each exploring an element of the Other in its application to themes in The Road: justice and society, violence, God, and language. Each section applies the philosophy of Levinas to the text and extracts the ethical themes thoroughly. Again, the importance of the application of Levinas’s philosophy to 2 McCarthy’s novel is crucial because it acknowledges the interest in ethics in postmodern criticism as well as in the public consciousness. McCarthy’s The Road follows the journey of a father and son after an apocalyptic event has left the landscape barren and ashen. The son, having been born post-apocalypse, only knows the world as is, where the father lives with the memory of how the world used to be. The father is instilling his son with stories of an existence completely foreign to his son, who has ever only experienced the world as it is after the apocalypse. The post-apocalyptic world is void of community and social institutions, where an individual takes interest to do what it takes to survive without concern for others. Emmanuel Levinas, viewing western philosophy as grounded in this same egotism, “wants to argue that my responsibility to the other is the fundamental structure upon which all other social structures rest” (Moran 321). This is the focus of the first section, “Proximity, Justice, and Memory: Elements to Rebuild an Ethical Society,” in which the social aspects of Levinas’s philosophy assist in explaining the role of the Other in accordance with society and state institutions. The novel imagines the world filled with starving people succumbing to unspeakable horrors in order to survive, and the only hope the reader has is the loyal devotion of an unnamed father to his unnamed son. The son is being raised with the old society’s moral foundation while the resulting post-apocalyptic society adheres to no such laws. McCarthy, then, is asking the reader at what point these moral obligations are counterproductive in surviving in a world without a moral doctrine to adhere to. Specifically, this first chapter delves into Levinas’s concept of morality in action; that is, without the innate core existing within the son, society, justice, judgment nor ethics can exist in The Road. The post- apocalyptic world is consumed by chaos and anarchy, where no state or judicial institutions maintain guidelines for acceptable social behavior or morality. This universality of morals is needed in order to create a cohesive, social community. Colin Davis, a Levinas scholar, makes a point in observing the universal needs of morality: “Levinas requires some account of how, without universalization, the encounter with the Other can be at the foundation of a moral society” (3-4). The existence of the Other is what constitutes the foundation of a society in which the majority of survivors in The Road lack. There 3 are few others to build this moral society upon because the world is barren and without resources. It is in this way that anarchy ensues and engulfs the protagonist and his son into surviving, at times, at an immoral cost. The challenges to moral behavior in The Road illustrates Levinas’s question: “what does it mean to talk of justice or responsibility when the belief systems which sustained such terms are in a state of collapse, is it possible to have an ethics without foundation, without imperatives or claim to universality?” (Davis 3-4). Levinas’s question further emphasizes the fundamental problem of the novel: how it is possible to act ethically toward the Other in the situation when the son is raised without the help of the state to instill and reinforce a universal set of ethics, and his father is constantly vigilant to avoid the Other in order to survive. Although Levinas stresses the importance of the Other as the Other pertains to me, he also notes that this is accepting the violence that the Other may do to me.
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